


Damage calculation

by orphan_account



Series: Can't move fast without breaking [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, No Spoilers, unintentional self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 10:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10965837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Personas are more dangerous than Akira had ever realized.But luckily, he isn't alone.





	Damage calculation

**Author's Note:**

> I started wondering why using physical Persona skills drains HP and decided to make a fic about it.
> 
> Enjoy.

He never expected this to happen. His Persona reflected all physical damage. With one last Bloodbath, the Shadows opposing them turned to ash, and his friends turned to look happily at their leader.

 

That was when Joker collapsed.

 

\---

 

When he came to, he knew he was inside a Safe Room. He couldn’t feel most of his body, but perhaps that wasn’t as bad. The parts where he felt anything were dusted with only searing pain. He couldn’t keep his eyes more than just barely open when he saw someone in the corner of his eye.

He couldn’t make it out at first, but it turned out to be Crow, silently sipping on coffee Joker had prepared the other day. He immediately recognized the older boy by his overly princely, white outfit that looked nothing like what a Phantom Thief would wear. Lazily opening only one of his eyes to see Joker’s open eyes brought a weak smile to his worried face. “Oh… You’re awake. Thank goodness.”

“…” Joker couldn’t utter a word, his body wouldn’t let him. Crow got up and walked over to him, a hint of grief hanging on his lips.

“To think you were able to cause this much damage to yourself in just one fight…” Offering a shot of Takemi's potion from a medicine cup against his lips, Joker could only comply to the other man’s aid and downed the liquid with ease. “I don’t expect it to help too much though…”

The numbness slowly dissipated along with the pains. The raven-haired boy tried getting upright, but it was easier said than done. “Don’t push yourself, it will only make the wounds open up again…”

Joker gazed at Crow in confusion. “You mean you’ve never…?”

Silence ensued. After a while, Crow sighed and sat down next to the team leader. “Have you ever calculated the damage you take when you use a heavy or severe physical attack through your Persona? It is quite vicious.”

Thinking back at it, he remembered that it took roughly a quarter of his total health simply to use Bloodbath. He had never thought about it before, as he preferred magic over physical attacks any day. He left the other guys sit at the sidelines, so there wasn’t much physical damage dealt anyways. “It doesn’t just lower health, it causes actual, visible and physical damage if the move is strong enough, even to the user.”

“Does anyone else know?” That was the silent question Joker mustered.

“I thought you already knew this since you avoid having Skull or Fox on your team.” Joker shook his head, and lazily scanned the area, looking for his mask that wasn’t already hiding his tired eyes. Seeing it on the table next to the now empty cup of coffee made his focus return to the Detective Prince. The carefree smile had flown back onto Crow's face. “I told everyone to go home and that I’d take care of you. Should we head back? You must be tired.”

Slowly nodding, he tried to get up again. It wasn’t without problems, but as soon as his back had straightened up and he was sitting next to his teammate, Crow stopped him. “How about I carry you home? I’m afraid you’ll be more hurt if you try walking yourself…”

Slipping the mask onto his leader's face, he lifted Joker up with little trouble.

 

\---

 

“Good evening!” Akechi greeted Sojiro, as he chimed through the door with Akira in his arms.

“Uh, what exactly is going on?” Sojiro stared as Akechi carried the other boy upstairs, gently placing him onto the bed.

Leaning from the staircase, Akechi could only reassure the café owner with a smile that the other boy was fine.  
Having returned to the attic, Akechi found the other boy sitting silently, staring off into space. Akira’s grey eyes ended up glancing at Akechi's cognac ones that were nearly on the same level. Akechi had kneeled on the floor right in front of him, holding Akira’s hands in his own and petting them gently with his thumbs. “Are you hurting?”

“Not really…”

Akechi didn’t reply, and just focused on feeling the warmth of Akira’s skin. Well, that’s what he was going for but not taking off his gloves was probably an astonishingly dumb move on his part. It seemed that Akira had caught onto that as well, with a lazy smirk that wasn’t quite the same as Joker’s but that made chills run down his spine the same.

“… Goro.” Hearing Akira call him by his first name broke him from his momentary trance. He hadn’t heard Akira call him by his first name before, but he hadn’t really called the older boy out that often if it wasn’t in the Metaverse, and that was just the codename too. “Is it fine I call you that?”

“Ah, umm, yes, off course!” Slipping on the oh so obviously façade of a smile to hide his awkwardness was probably the worst thing he could have done, as this sent the detective internally grimacing for having used the same defense mechanism for like the millionth time.

Unable to form actually comprehensible sentences to follow up with, Goro's gaze fell. Akira, unbeknownst to Goro, found these moments when Goro couldn’t find words quite amusing, with his eyes unable to reach up to the bespectacled boy’s face, all thanks to the brunet’s embarrassment.

“Uh, I thought we should check if there were any physical marks left from the battle… So, how about it?” Not saying a word, Akira discarded the blazer and as his hands reached the hem of his turtleneck, he looked at Goro and smiled, teeth just barely showing. Goro squinted his eyes somewhat from the action, trying to analyze whether the move was supposed to hold flirty intent, or if Akira was secretly judging his teammate's somewhat questionable request.

The young delinquent kept up with his silence and as soon as nothing blocked the detective from seeing Akira’s upper body, it became clear. Even Akira was shocked to find scarred lines running rampant across his arms and, as the other boy quickly found, on his back too. Not asking for his consent, Goro’s hand reached to touch one of the many scars that had been haphazardly etched into his arm.

The younger boy showed no signs of this causing harm, but Goro asked regardless. Only shaking his head, the boy with curly hair assured the other that it was okay. Goro knew that light would come to it one day, that he too, had these similar lines all across his torso and upper arms. He slowly graced the scars on Akira’s skin, softly skimming from one to the next.

As he reached the team leader’s shoulder, he found himself one knee already resting on the bed, the other leaning against the frame of the bed. Goro’s arm immediately retracted as he noticed how close he had gotten while inspected Akira, hiding his mouth behind his gloved hand and avoiding eye contact in the coy manner Akira had grown quite accustomed to.

“Goro, it’s fine.” Akira reassured as his hand gently reached the detective's hand and with approximately the same precision as he would snatch the mask from an enemy to 'show him its true form', moved Goro’s hand to the side to look the flustered boy in the eyes. “Do you not believe me?”

“That’s not what I meant…” Ready to give up, Goro’s head fell to Akira’s yet untouched collarbone. It wasn’t long before Goro’s arms followed and as they reached their final destination, around Akira’s shoulders, was the brunet's head lifted next to the other boy’s curly mess that was his hair.

Nuzzling his nose into the other’s russet hair, Akira couldn’t help but close his eyes and sigh in relief. The air blown away with the sigh tickled Goro’s back of neck and he lightly shuddered from surprise. The delinquent's hand played with the stray hairs that rested against the side of Goro’s neck, bringing him solace. “It’s fine… You’re home, you’re safe… I’m here for you…”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fic since like 2012 (very dark times) and English isn't my first language and I felt like despite reaching erudite levels of knowledge in the game, my English isn't all that titillating compared to other fics.
> 
> I'm considering making this into a series, and I'd really like to know what you think. Should I keep it as a oneshot or make more?


End file.
